


Sail These Roads and Back Again

by neverfaraway



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-06-28 06:48:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15702009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverfaraway/pseuds/neverfaraway
Summary: James has fled the New World for the Old, shed his name and found quietude in his solitary existence. That is, until his favourite worst memory appears on the farm track, collapses upon his sopha, and refuses to be shaken loose. While Corsica smoulders and war becomes ever more likely, Flint and Silver enter a war of their own: to reclaim their past and forge an uncertain future.





	1. The Burden of Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgements: There aren't words enough to thank my wonderful collaborators - **ponytailflint** for their insistence on the specificity of pigs and period-appropriate furnishings and **benditlikerackham** for challenging me to think critically about my choice of language. A better artist and beta an author could not have hoped to find. 
> 
> I was completely blocked on finishing the second half of this story for weeks, and then was fortunate enough to attend the Black Sails panel at Nine Worlds 2018, at which Luke Arnold made a surprise appearance. His comments and insight - particularly into Silver's insecurities and conception of himself - form the basis for the entire final... two thirds?... of this fic. So, cheers for that, Luke.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/156058602@N06/29132450887/in/dateposted-public/)

_Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end._ \- Seneca the Younger

The sun sets hard on the scrub-fields of Corsica in summer; it tumbles over the edge of the horizon having burned and scorched the whole day long, leaving men gasping and emerging gratefully from the shade of oak trees.

It has been seventeen hours since he rose before the sun, and now it has gone he feels its absence like an ox feels the phantom weight of the yoke after ploughing. The memory of its heat shivers on the column of his neck, his scarf a soaked, ragged thing, hanging limply against his chest.

If it is a life not entirely devoid of luxury, the only sign of decadence is a low rattan sopha, draped with shawls and set near the front of the verandah that the evening light should catch it just so. It is here he sprawls, once scarf and shirt are discarded and a wrung-out cloth is about his shoulders. In his hand is a book, well-loved to the point of destruction, its covers hanging by threads.

Often he chooses not to read. He finds, now, that he is, often-as-not, content to look out on the domain he has defined and hewn from the mountainside. Each day spills into evening in much the same fashion and he derives a certain pleasure from the repetition in his life's pattern. It is not joy, nor happiness, but he had never banked on regaining that state, so its absence is not a surprise.

As the sun dips below the horizon he retreats, closing the shutters behind him and lighting a candle to allow reading before bed. These times are the most treacherous; it is too easy to sink into melancholy, imagining his bed not a lonely one. Sometimes he resorts to brandy; sometimes he indulges his misery and curls himself around the memory of the people whose faces he cannot quite recall with the clarity of recent memory. He wakes, often, with the taste of their shape heavy on his tongue and attempts to wrestle his recollection into sharper focus, but it is to no avail. One by one, his ghosts leave him, as he has always been afraid they would.

But day dawns once more and the heat rises swiftly, and there is land to be coaxed towards fruitfulness. He has purpose, and that is more than many a man can say of himself.

* * *

At three hours past noon, the accustomed rhythm of his life is brought juddering and cursing to a halt. With the sun behind, it looks in silhouette as though a demon stalks him; a second glance tells him the demon limps, the gait of a man with iron for a leg, the staggering roll of a man fit to fall under his own weight. A third has him wondering what he has done in recent years to warrant visitation by such an apparition as this, because it looks, although it could not be, as though John Silver is stumbling down the track from the direction of Ajaccio. 

John Silver, if it is him, says nothing to settle the matter in either direction. He catches sight of his quarry, pushes ratted hair from his eyes with the hand not clutching his side, and faints clean away. He lies on the road, leg crumpled beneath him, until James stands above him and puts out a foot to turn him. It is him, he already knows, but it would not do to be made a fool by dread, nor by hope. 

It is him, evidently. It would be possible to leave him here, return to the farmhouse, let sun and lack of water dispatch him once and for all. 

He bends at the knee and squats beside him. It is a simple matter of inserting an arm beneath the man's shoulder, heaving him to sag alongside. As he drags Silver in the direction of the house it brings to mind an altogether different land, one of trunks of towering trees and lobes of leaves pierced through with shafts of sweltering sun. 

He reaches the house and heaves his burden onto the sopha, too perturbed to be dismayed at the dust on the cushions. It does not appear comfortable, the arrangement of Silver’s limbs under and around him, but his chest rises and falls. His brow, above closed eyes, is untroubled. 

James leaves him there, finding himself in need of a walk.

* * *

The sun is slipping towards the horizon, stretching shadows into purple fingers grasping forth from the base of trees. James sits upon the stump of the cork oak he had been cutting when Silver had appeared at the end of the track.

He pushes fingers through his hair to feel the length of it, brushing his shoulders and thick with the dust of a day’s work. Beneath the dust there is a finger’s breadth of white hair beginning at his temple. His skin is weathered by dirt and sun and the dry wind that sweeps often down the valley; it is all-over brown, might be mistaken for a single unbroken freckle from his forehead to the open neck of his shirt.

A choice stands before him: to flee, let Silver wake to an empty house and wonder if finding him here had been a mirage; to stay, and assume the character Silver had come here expecting to find, the man whose rage he has sloughed away with three years’ labour in the dirt of this land. One path he fears; maybe if he had left Silver at the side of the track the other would have been possible. Now that he has hauled the man into his home, laid him down upon the sopha, watched the rise and fall of his chest beneath that ragged shirt, flight is impossible. Much as he would like, he cannot pretend this invasion has left him unmoved.

He has felt guilt for so long, over so many people, so many happenings. In the hold of the Lion, when last he looked on Silver's face, he had felt sick with guilt that he would have said anything, done anything, to persuade Silver to turn back from his chosen course.

Silver had held himself like a man going to his grave, his pretence at indifference slipping further with every second.

“It will be for the best,” he had said. “For all of us.”

James had raged and snarled. What would Thomas see when presented with him, but a monster. He had hated Silver with such a sharp, definite clarity because Silver had taken from him, by binding him and putting him on this ship, the only test he would have had of his own character. Had Silver not forced his hand, would he ever have chosen to return to Thomas, being who he had become?

If he was a coward for wanting to run from Thomas, then Silver was a coward for putting him on that fucking ship and consigning his doubts and uncertainties to a prison where they could not sing to him in the night, while he curled around his Maroon princess and play-acted at being a king. Silver was a goddamned coward for feeling about the edges of what hovered between them and shying from it. For telling James with soft words and softer gestures that he too was caught, only to free himself by that most cowardly of means. For setting James loose and saying, in that pleading, pitiful voice that it was all for James' benefit.

There was a time when he had allowed himself to enjoy the warmth between them, reasoning that to do so was not foolish. That there was trust, established and proven, between them. When Silver first spoke of the darkness, he should have taken Silver's hands between his own and told him he was sorry for bringing him to this point, but to do so would have been a bald-faced lie. Then, he had not been sorry at all.

He spends the night in wakefulness, recalling Thomas' final breath upon his cheek as it left him, until it strengthens his resolve.

* * *

When James returns to the verandah, Silver is still asleep; he has somewhat righted himself, sprawls now with his head upon the cushion and his mouth lolling open.

James goes about his business, sleeping a few hours upon the counterpane of his own bed and waking unrested an hour before dawn. He draws water, sets a fire, and waits for the pot to boil. He adds it to a mug of tea leaves; yesterday's, and eked out with maquis from the hillside. He sips it slowly while it is still too hot; he watches dawn creep down the valley.

Silver wakes after a further eight hours of fitful sleep, jerking upright and fixing James with a narrow, frightened glare.

"What day is this?" he demands.

"The sixteenth." His voice is an old, forgotten thing, rusty from lack of use. He clears his throat.

"Of?"

"October, you fool." He rolls his eyes. "I haven't let you sleep a month on my sopha."

Silver lets out a heavy breath and flops onto the cushion. "Thought I might be dreaming it. Some sort of hallucination. You... here." He waves a hand which seems to take in the farm, its surroundings and, James assumes, the humble nature of his existence. It is unclear which Silver finds the more unlikely.

"You're here alone? Where is your wife?"

Silver gives a long sigh. He keeps his eyes averted, and it occurs to Flint that he has rarely seen true shame colour that face before.

“She is not my wife,” he says. “That is, she is not my wife anymore.”

James does not ask, and Silver does not supply more, even to dissemble. He does, however, prop himself on his elbows again and fix James with a look entirely too naked in its sincerity. “Thomas Hamilton. Was he -“

James' hands tighten on the mug of tea. He places it carefully on the table. “If you think you have the right to ask, just because I haven’t yet slit your throat -“

“I would know,” Silver presses, hand held out between them. “I would know whether you and he were reunited -“

“You are not fit to speak his name,” James retorts, between clenched teeth. He already misses the silence. He needs to put distance between them, so that he can master the urge to wrap fingers around Silver's lying throat and tighten them until there is no breath left to squeeze from him.

He halts in the doorway, because Silver is watching him, eyes hanging on him pityingly.

“He is dead," he manages. "You gave me a year and sixteen days at his side. That's why I haven't slit your throat; don't count on it to last.”

* * *

The next morning dawns close and humid. He has slept badly, dreamt of the sickening roll of the hold of a ship.

He has not held responsibility for another person's life since he stepped off the spice ship at Ajaccio. Since he lowered Thomas into the ground he has not felt the weight of another's expectation. Silver has spent the night lolling on the sopha, his arms limp at his sides and the sweat of fever on his brow. James could leave him there; he could run, and not look back. What he became in those weeks after Charles Town, when he bargained his soul for the sake of his crew and weathered Silver’s fear and mistrust, he does not want to become again, and he fears that with Silver here he will have no choice.

He emerges into sharp, morning sun and finds Silver still on the sopha, nose in a book he has not sought permission to read.

“Good morning,” he says, when James clears his throat. He attempts a wary smile. “Apologies, I was restless, needed something to put me back to sleep. I decided Seneca would probably do the trick.”

James snorts despite himself, schools his features into an expression of derision. It is strange after these years of solitude to have to adjust the fall of his features.

“I’ve business in the village. ”

“Business," Silver repeats.

"Yes, business, none of it yours. While I'm gone you can make yourself useful."

"Useful?" Silver glances askance at the iron leg, which he has unfastened and discarded.

“There’s plenty of honest labour to be done.”

“Holes to be dug, weeds to be pulled, that sort of thing?”

James raises an eyebrow; he refuses to be shamed by the mundanity of his new existence.

Silver smirks. “‘You will notice that the most powerful and highly stationed men let drop remarks in which they pray for leisure, praise it, and rate it higher than all their blessings.’”

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. “You mock me with my own purloined philosophy.”

“I’m finding Seneca instructive. Do I have a choice, with the digging, et cetera?"

There is always a choice. Silver will have every opportunity in James' absence to absent himself; perhaps James will return to find him gone again, as though he had never been at all.

* * *

Silver remains. He is no good with a shovel or a pick, lacking the balance to wield them efficiently. James watches him from the corner of his eye as he becomes stormy-faced and sullen before stomping off to stalk about in the shade beneath the olive trees. He does not offer assistance; what point allowing Silver the fiction that he belongs in this world. There is a wound that Silver has been hiding; James perceived it immediately Silver was mobile. A stabbing, perhaps, or maybe a glancing shot to the side; nothing so serious as to require intervention, but enough that Silver hobbles and winces more than James had been accustomed to notice during their time aboard the Walrus. He says nothing on the subject, sure that Silver, if he wishes to relate the story, will do so with little enough encouragement; every day perplexed when Silver does nothing of the sort, and merely goes about his duties with a silent, grimacing sort of stoicism.

"Sit down," he says harshly, one afternoon of watching Silver flinch and curse under his breath too many times.

Silver sinks onto the sopha with a sullen sort of gratitude, James hands him a rag for him to wipe his brow, and they speak no more words that day. Some days later Silver fashions himself a sturdier crutch from a fallen bough of the gnarled almond tree.

When the nights begin to cool, the daylight slips away sooner every evening; it is never truly cold here, but it is enough that James retrieves a blanket to add to the sheets upon his bed. After a moment of indecision - a cruel enjoyment in the idea of making Silver shiver miserably on the verandah - he takes another blanket from the chest.

Silver is awake; there is light spilling from a single candle illuminating the bare expanse of Silver's side as he dabs at the wound there - from a knife, as James had suspected, but not noticeably festered.

"Difference of opinions with the men who brought me here," Silver says, tugging his shirt over the wound. "They thought we had agreed a price for my passage that was too high for me to countenance. It's only a scratch."

James snorts, because he had no intention of asking or expressing concern, and flings the blanket at him.

* * *

The coming of November brings rains and more rains until the cistern James has constructed high on the hillside overflows and sends a cascade down the valley-side. A sow and her piglets drown; wild ones, for James has not turned his hand to husbandry, but still a forlorn discovery, their little bodies floating on the receding flood when James ventures out to assess the damage.

He returns from the hillside with the piglets tied about his neck and the sow across his shoulders; he has thoughts of butchering her and smoking her for bacon above the fire, but he knows little enough of salting and preserving, entrusting that to a butcher in the village, so he heaves her onto the wet grass at the edge of the verandah and takes the piglets to the cork tree, whose roots stretch wide and leave ample space between them to dig. There, he buries the piglets, reasoning that it is sense to dispose of them without tempting foxes and rats. When he returns, Silver is crouched over the sow, peering at her with the same confusion as James recalls from a sun-bleached afternoon on a beach in the Bahamas.

"Are we to cook her?" Silver asks, eyeing the body warily.

"We've no means to preserve her," James says. She is small, for a wild pig, but enough for the butchering to be a challenge. "We'll have to spit her."

Silver gives a rueful chuckle, "Aye, mayhap I remember how."

"Why are you here?" Flint demands, suddenly tired of the sound of Silver's crutch on the floorboards, the unwelcome intrusion of memory upon his solitude, as though Silver has any right to make their past association a source of levity. “How the hell did you find me?”

Silver glances at him in apparent surprise, and James can no longer bear to be in his presence, at once solicitous and provocative. He leaves Silver and the sow in the damp grass and returns to the erstwhile sanctuary of the house, burning with the injustice of the death of the sow and her little ones, caused by his own stupidity, sick with anger at himself for lacking the wherewithal to make the most of the situation now it has occurred. An additional sow's worth of bacon would have seen him through the winter with enough to spare to sell.

"You have a right to ask," Silver says, barging through the kitchen doorway in pursuit. "I might not be inclined to answer, but - "

"Say, or do not," James snaps, unable to face him. From the corner of his eye, he sees Silver lower himself carefully onto a stool.

“Captain James Flint drank himself to death in Savannah,” Silver says quietly, after a long and heavy pause. “Meanwhile, a man named Alphonse Chimère boarded a Florida boat bound for Cape Verde. What he did there, I have been unable to ascertain, but I picked up his trail on a ship to the Azores; there he found passage to Lisbon, then Marseille, and on to Ajaccio. Did you really expect that name to escape my notice?”

“I did not expect anyone to be looking," James replies through gritted teeth. "Why search me out?”

At this Silver looks away. James wonders whether it means Silver’s motives were ones he does not wish to divulge, or that he is dismayed by them.

"Would you believe it was out of a desire to speak with you once more?" Silver asks, the beginnings of a smile apparent at the corners of his mouth.

"Do not spin me a tale," James says, his voice ugly to his own ears. "When last we parted, you had no regard for my welfare. Do not attempt to persuade me that anything but selfish aims have brought you to my door. Is Madi dead?"

Silver's eyes fall to the boards beneath James' feet. For a lurching moment, James imagines Madi hanged by the Crown, betrayed to her death. She had been destined for greater things, of that he had been sure.

"Mother of god, of course she's not dead," Silver says, his mouth a thin, straight line. "She is still Queen of her people, as far as I know; nothing short of the Second Coming could have diverted her from it."

"And yet you are here, dog-eared and destitute, and not King of the Maroons, after all."

"It was a thankless task, trying to be leader to her people; I thought better of it."

James snorts. "You mean, they would not have you."

"I did my best to persuade them of the benefit of it - "

“I begin to see why she has not sent after you. This is the whining of a child.”

“Fuck you, you have no idea-“

James turns away, waving a hand as though to rid himself of the droning of a mosquito. “I don’t care to hear your excuses.”

He cannot articulate his rage, for fear it will reveal too much. He has no desire to invite Silver’s pity. His life is solitary by choice; he hasn’t the right to castigate Silver for rejecting the life he has not sought to build. And yet, and yet. Silver had a home, and a wife, and a greater purpose. He cannot - he will not - indulge him by imagining what could have prompted him to abandon it. 

“You’re a bloody fool,” he says, taking up the gutting knife.

He returns to the sow and heaves her onto her side. The innards he knows could be utilised, made into blood pudding, but he has no stomach for it while his hands itch to abandon the blade and fasten themselves around Silver's ugly, complacent throat.

When the sow is cleaned Silver appears bearing the spit from the kitchen fire with an air of wary apology, and between them they spit her, hoisting her with some difficulty and carrying her inside, setting her above the hearth fire to cook. They do not speak; Silver seems sunk in his own peculiar reverie and James is more than willing to prolong the silence until Silver gives the endeavour up for lost and leaves him be.

After some hours, in which James sets himself to whittling a new handle for his good knife, the fat begins to sizzle in the flames, making them flare and spit, the smell of the sow's scorching bristles and her skin beginning to catch making the air in the house thick and primitive. Silver, as though summoned by the smell, returns to join him at the table.

“They had me be her consort," Silver says at last, his eyes on the fire. "You once reminded me that outside a ship's crew, there was no purpose to be found for me, without a body of men to bend to my advantage. She was their leader; I was her husband. I was not built for such a life as that.”

“A life such as that is what men die for.”

“Not me. Not you, either. You don’t fool me with your talk of trading oars for shovels; it wasn’t true then and it isn’t now.”

“What would you know of my life?”

Silver fixes him with a long look. “I know you. God knows why I’m here except I couldn’t think of anywhere else to be, but don’t think you can fool me the way you’ve fooled yourself.”

James’ lip curls; his own bared teeth remind him of a man who would burn a town to ashes.

"Look, I'm gratified you've found this measure of - " Silver opens his hands wide and sweeps them to take in their surroundings, "- happiness."

"Happiness," James repeats. He could take up the fire iron and beat Silver into silence with it. "You think this is happiness. I am here thanks to choices I did not make."

"Alright, then," Silver says. "Freedom. You seem to have found freedom here. It is more than many men ever hope to find."

"Freedom is something one seeks, not something imposed," James replies. One more word from Silver, one more glib, facile remark on his good fortune and he will have his excuse; Silver's blood will be on his hands.

Silver stares at him in surprise. "I'm sorry," he says, eventually. "I only thought - forgive me, I misjudged my approach."

"The John Silver I knew never spoke a word he did not intend."

"Perhaps, then, I am not that man anymore." Silver shoves himself off the stool with a shrug. "I'll not be sorry for it."

He thumps his way heavily out of the kitchen, leaving the door to the verandah swinging on its uneven hinges.

* * *

James had read three acts of The Tempest by candlelight while the sow roasted, carved meat for himself and, grudgingly, enough to spare, and then retired to bed having eaten little, a sour taste in his mouth. He had listened, later, to the sounds of Silver returning, to his heavy, uneven footsteps on the kitchen floor, the clatter of his knife upon a plate.

When he had risen this morning, Silver was gone, and so was the sow; the meat had been stripped, placed on the window-sill in the cool, fresh air, and the bones set to boil for soup. He had refrained from inspecting the soup-pot; anger still coiled in his belly and prevented him from accepting this olive branch in the form of Silver's newfound domestic probity.

Now, Silver has returned with damp hair, smelling of woodash soap, and interrupts James in the midst of filing the kitchen hinges. The door itself lies prone and Silver pivots his way around it with some agility.

“There’s another man wears my name, now, you know," he says by way of greeting. "At least two ‘Long John Silver’s roaming the Caribbean, probably more. I hear my legend precedes me, has a way of opening purses.”

He drops a handful of fragrant maquis into the soup and James has every intention of ignoring him, except Silver then drops into the seat opposite and fixes him with a watchful, solemn expression.

“Tell me,” Silver says, with reticence he has learned to display on this subject alone. “Tell me of Savannah.”

James continues to file; the hinge is nearly smooth enough that it will drop perfectly into its socket. He stills only when Silver's fingers come to rest upon his own. When James meets his gaze it is sincere and apologetic; his fingers twitch with the urge to drive the file into Silver's solicitous hand.

“I found him, working the fields," he says shortly. "His face was brown like mine and his hands were no longer soft, as I remembered them. Bedlam had not been kind; his lungs were consumptive.”

“I’m sorry.”

James shakes his head. "Do not," he says, for he cannot bear it, despite everything. "We knew true happiness, for a while. Whatever your motives, I cannot begrudge that.”

Silver slowly, with eyes watchful as though he is gentling a startled horse, frees James' hand of its occupation with the hinge. He raises it to his lips and simply presses them to it for a moment, no more than a brush of skin and breath against his knuckles. James watches, narrow-eyed, and is unsettled by the queasy lurch of his heart within his chest.

“This life is a mockery of the future Thomas and I had planned," he says, surprised by his own candour.

Silver shoots him a look of enquiry he tries not-quite-well enough to hide. Let him wonder. Let him cast an eye over this land and try to guess just how an escaped convict purchased this measure of freedom. Silver has relinquished his hand; he busies it with the hinges once more.

"I have been wondering, since I arrived here, what drives you to rise in the morning and toil on the land? _Alphonse Chimère_ , the man who could not bear to abandon all thought of windmills, here, like this...”

“There are no more windmills, and besides, my tilting days are behind me.” James files, relishing the solidity of the metal in his grasp. He remembers Thomas, then, and the plans they had made for their escape. “He made me promise; he liked to think of me, Cincinnatus at his plough, wizened by the wind and the sun.”

"Yes, but why this rock, for pity's sake? You could have flown for Zanzibar, Cadiz..."

“My Spanish is adequate," James agrees. "My French merely passable, but Thomas - Thomas spoke French with the kind of self-assurity men of my birth long to emulate; a lazy sort of entitlement, which left you thinking he must be the Duke D’Orleans and you must merely have imagined the terribly English way he shook you by the hand. We had decided on Saint Domingue.”

He will not outline the failures and miseries which have brought him here instead; those are plain enough for Silver to intuit.

“It was the best I could do," Silver says quietly, after some moments' pause. "To see you safe, both of you. I thought - I thought you would be happy.”

The sentiment lies heavily between them, tossed clumsily into the silence. Is that what Silver has been picturing all these years? Himself and Thomas, contented, some fantasy of Silver’s of their agrarian bliss? It’s the closest Silver has come to an apology; James suspects it is the closest he will receive. He nods to acknowledge it.

"Help me," he says eventually, indicating the finished hinge.

He wrestles the door into place and Silver supports it, letting his leg take the weight while James manoeuvres the joint. The filed hinges hang straight and James is pleased, in some small manner, with his success.

"For what it's worth, you were right," Silver says, eyes on the door between them as James tests it, making sure it will not slip again. "I was not made for monarchy. And Madi - she was made to serve her people. I never wanted to be a king.”

“You used to lie much more convincingly.”

“I swear,” Silver says, eyes and hands wide, and it’s so reminiscent of Nassau that James’ breath catches in his throat. “I swear, I wanted riches, and freedom enough to do what I would with them, and I quickly came to realise there is no freedom in the life of a king.”

“So, I should feel sorry for you, I suppose?”

It is on James' lips to enquire about the intervening years, how and when Silver came to realise the truth of his nature, whether it was he or Madi who cast him loose. He refuses to reveal his interest so baldly. Let the pretence stand, that he cares not at all.

“If you came here in search of that darkness we once knew, you’ll find yourself disappointed. I am not that man, anymore. This must be enough."

Silver’s mouth twists; James has struck upon some part of the truth, and finds that he regrets it. Still, it is a necessity; what point allowing Silver to think that fashioning a different ending to their old story might succeed.

"I don't know, king to farmhand; that's nothing to be sniffed at."

"Fuck yourself," James says equably.

"No, no, I'm entirely sincere," Silver protests. "I sympathise, how could I not? To take this path of steady, relentless peace. Is this not what I fought for? Nothing surprising, nothing forcing you to react in ways that frighten you. No darkness, nor any particular sort of light, but always this reassuring variety of overcast half-light.”

“You're a facetious shit."

Silver gave a helpless shrug. “I see the benefit in cutting short that repetitious pattern of destruction. God knows I longed for it. But this - this existence saddens me, in ways I can’t explain. I cannot think you were made to be alone. It used to be a skill of mine to read the set of your brow, the curl of your mouth; you felt so much and betrayed every thought to me. Now you think yourself immune to feeling."

“Enough,” James says and sets to picking up the tools. There are fences to mend and the tiles on the roof to be replaced, and not enough hours in the day to achieve any of it.

Silver watches him go; James is disquieted to realise he is not smiling, merely frowning as though deep in thought.

* * *

November slides towards December with determination, snows beginning to dust the caps of the mountains.

Silver is still a loss with the pick and the shovel, but he labours at all other work James puts his way with a quiet sense of satisfaction. He has dragged the sopha from the verandah into the kitchen and he sleeps there by the hearth beneath the same grubby blanket James had slung at him weeks before. James ignores the sopha's presence, despite the inconvenience it presents even when Silver has pushed it to the corner and folded away his things.

When James trips over it and calls Silver the son of a syphilitic whore, Silver merely grins, like the sun breaking through clouds. James looks away, his throat tight. It has been nine weeks and still he has not told Silver to leave.

Loving Silver had once been the act of a hopeless man. James had sought a reason for his continued existence in the battle for Nassau, the war against England, and finally in Silver, and he had been made a fool by all three. He feels no particular bitterness for it on that account; anger, yes, for the betrayal, and for the choices made on his behalf. But he cannot fault Silver for doing what he would not and seeking a way to bring them all to peace, once more.

* * *

The track through the mountains to Ajaccio carves a sinuous path through chestnut forest and hillsides verdant with fragrant myrtle, the air pungent even in winter with the spiced, woody scent of the maquis. James has not ventured to Ajaccio since he first rounded the bend in the road and spied the farm, nestled at the foot of the mountains, but needs must he journey to the villages thereabouts to find provision for the winter. The coldest months will not be hard, this year, for he has enough put by, but James has learned that it is spring which brings starvation, while the weeks creep by until the first fruitfulness of the summer.

He has acquired an understanding of the Corse dialect, and has satisfactory proficiency with French. He has made no pretence of being a Frenchman, but on his purchase of the farm, then derelict and neglected, he made opaque reference to a love lost and a fortune gained as a young man in French Guyana. He makes careful display of security without excessive wealth, of courtesy without inviting conversation.

The exception to this rule sits, on his arrival in the market square, upon a small, wooden chair in the shade of gnarled olive tree. Madame Petru is old; possibly as old as the olive tree, and almost as bent and withered by time. She has beside her a cart covered by a sheet of white muslin, and when she catches sight of James she beckons him with one imperious crooked finger to approach it.

"Monsieur Giacumu," she says, pleased, gripping his sleeve with her misshapen hand. "It is good to see you. I have just the one, I have been saving it for you."

She draws back the cloth to reveal cheeses like many milky moons nestled in straw, damp with whey and soft as butter. These, the sweetest and freshest of the cheeses, she will sell to the friars in the monastery, or to the daughters of the burghers on their name day; she ignores them and gestures to a wide, yellow wheel propped against the side of the cart. It has a dark rind like a chestnut's skin and inside, James knows, there is the sharp, salty cheese made from goat's milk that will see him through the winter.

"It is a beauty," he says, in Corsu, and Madame Petru's laugh is warm and cracked. "How much?"

"Call it the tiling on the roof, and the gate in the pasture - it'll need re-hanging before spring."

"Robbery," James replies, with a smile, "but I will weather it."

Madame Petru shakes his hand, which would usually conclude their business. Perhaps a week hence he will make the journey along the valley and carry out the works Madame Petru has instructed. This morning, however, she keeps hold of his hand and fixes him with a mischevious eye.

"You're sure you won't be needing extra this year, on account of your guest?"

For a moment, James says nothing, aware of the weak winter sun on his cheek. How Madame Petru has come to know of Silver's arrival is not worth his concern; little remains secret in the hillsides around Bastelica, and Madame Petru is a venerable form of human pamphlet, gathering and distributing news far and wide. It is what has made James' occupation of the farm pass with little remark or alarm from the villagers - Madame Petru has gleaned what she can of his origins and intentions and he has consequently been declared a strange but unthreatening interloper.

"An associate from my time in the Navy," he says, and Madame's eyes narrow at this morsel of information. "He will not be staying."

"Ah, well. In that case, perhaps this wheel will do."

James bids her a good afternoon and hastens to conclude his dealings with the butcher, Biasgiu, to whom he delivered a boar for curing in late summer. In return for James' carpentry, the pig is to be collected before Christmas and hung in the outbuilding to give bacon and salt pork through the meagre months of early spring.

There are Genoese musketry on the square as James slips through the shade in the direction of Biasgiu's yard. He eyes them warily; they are here since an incident in Ajaccio involving an overzealous pamphleteer and his injudicious remarks on the subject of the occupation. There is little fear in them, judging by the way they loll against the chapel wall and rest their guns lazily against their boots, but James does not like the taste of it, the feel of the languid unseasonal sun, lulling everyone into complacency.

On his previous trips to Bastelica, he has paused before returning home, taking a drink of châtaigner in the hostelry and letting the unfamiliar sounds of Corsu tumble around him. Making himself a familiar, unremarkable sight has been of importance these past years. Today, he demurs the pleasantries with the barkeeper and an hour lounging in the still-warm sun. The sight of the muskets has set his teeth on edge.

On his return, he has finished stabling he mule and has hefted the cheese onto his shoulder when Silver appears at the kitchen door.

"Bear chase you home?" Silver demands. "You've a face like an angry mare before she bites."

"It's no concern of yours," James retorts. He thumps the cheese onto the kitchen table, where Silver stares at it with wide, bewildered eyes. "For the winter," he explains.

"Are we to become mice?"

"There's a salted pig, too, which you can fetch before Christmas."

Silver's face performs a curious trick and takes on the appearance of a much younger, happier man, his mouth wide and his eyes creased with pleasure. James realises his mistake.

"I'll be glad to, if I'm staying that long."

Silver's face is open and guileless and it recalls a cook who was not even a cook and the beginning of story about a Spaniard named Vazquez. James leaves him to gape at the cheese and retreats to the sanctuary of his bedchamber.

Later he sits up long into the night. Silver abandons any attempt to speak to him with an irritated glance over his shoulder, stomping off in the direction of the sopha muttering about the waste of candles. In these moods, James finds this room to be the only place he can bear; the patched and ragged rug beneath his feet, and the security of the cargo stashed underneath the floorboards. Silver cannot know. There are cold fingers in the collar of his James' shirt, a shiver in his bones. The knowledge that there will be a choice to be made, a fight to be fought or avoided. There are muskets in Bastelica; war cannot be far away.

* * *

November gives way to December and with it come colder nights, the morning air misty and chill. The guns at Ajaccio sound often, even though it should be too late in the year for the Barbary pirates to risk their ships on slaving raids. James wonders exactly whom the garrison intends to intimidate with these impotent displays. He considers telling Silver about the muskets, about his fears for the future, but as it is a future which can be of no importance to Silver, who must surely depart come the spring, it is only a fleeting thought.

Silver meanwhile has grown restless in the confines of the valley and has taken to going off by himself on missions to the town to procure provisions and snippets of gossip, returning to tell James amusing tales of Lisandru the baker's son pushing the blacksmith's daughter into the lavoir while she scrubbed her washing . He brings back things they need, too; nails for mending the fences and seed to sow after the autumn's bean pods mouldered on the vine. He, too, must have noted the muskets. There is nearly half a garrison, now, spread out in the villages along the Prunelli valley, and the disquiet amongst the young men in the town squares is palpable. James cannot imagine that Silver is ignorant of these things, and yet he says nothing.

In mid-December he returns with the cured pig on the mule-cart, clutching a bottle of apricot brandy in one hand and wearing a wide, proud grin.

"That Biasgiu's more an old woman than Madame Petru," he says, while they heave the pig onto its hook in the outhouse and haul it into the rafters on a rope. "Desperate for gossip. Told him I used to be your cook in the Navy," he adds, with raised eyebrows. "Said you'd taken me in when I was down on my luck, given me employment. Reckon the village'll have you down as a saint by Christmas."

"Aren't I already?" James says, scowling, and Silver only laughs. 

Saint or no, on Christmas day the bells ring across the valley from chapel and church, and James is conscious of his own helpless descent into a pleasant sort of happiness. There is more wintery sun low in the sky, the heads of the mountains in the massif at the end of the valley are capped with snow, and a sense of wellbeing hangs about him, about the pair of them, ensconced by the fire with pork stew fragrant with maquis and roasted chestnuts and generous measures of brandy.

Silver's eyes are bright with the light of the fire and its flickering casts his face into handsome, expressive shadows. James knows it is foolish to fall into pleasant contemplation of his profile as he expounds upon some theory and gesticulates towards the fireplace so that droplets from his glass sizzle on the hearthstone. He is well aware of the air of lazy anticipation settling between them when Silver casts a glance his way and smiles at him with a private, remembering sort of smile. He should have been afraid of it.

"Why are you laughing?" he snaps at Silver, realising the fool is grinning at him.

"Is there nothing about our current situation that you find remotely ridiculous?"

"Such as?"

“Well, let us be honest with one another - if you had truly intended anonymity, to remain here in solitude for the rest of your days, you would not have left a trail of poorly-concealed clues across half the Atlantic trade ports, and if I harboured any ill will towards you, I would not have followed it simply to make myself a hindrance to your agriculture. You've asked why I’m here, simply because to make me give voice to the thought relieves you of the responsibility for it.”

“And yet you cannot,” James says, watching the shadows swallow the curve of Silver's throat when he upends his glass. “Give voice to it.”

“Fuck you,” Silver says, without rancour. “When I think about everything we’ve lost, between us, I can’t imagine how we’ve kept our wits.”

James has to tip back his head and laugh, then, as he has not laughed since Savannah. “You think that’s what we’ve done.”

Silver’s mouth twitches, even as he pretends at disdain. “Well, if not, this is a fine enough species of madness for me.”

James allows his gaze to drift over Silver's almond-wood crutch, abandoned beside his chair. He supposes Silver is right; they have, between them, lost plenty.

He stands, puts down his brandy, and clears his throat. “Come to bed,” he says, extending a hand in invitation.

Silver stares at him.

When James killed Dooley it was not a decision, but merely reflexive action; in that second, and in all the seconds since, he has never felt sorrow for it, nor any species of remorse. If God himself stood behind Silver with a pistol aimed, James would have cut him down; this has always been, and remains true. It is what gave James a certain quietude, a calmness, during those weeks while they planned the rebellion and the terrible days of Silver’s excoriating grief. He imagined them shield-brothers; let Achilles rage and blaze, while he, Patroclus, remained steadfast. There was a romance to it, and it soothed him in the long evenings, to know that he would kill for Silver, die for him without forethought, for with Madi’s love and his protection Silver would be safe twice over.

Silver stands, slowly. Observing him now, a wary animal, all that chatter and restless energy banked and taken over by this hungry watchfulness, James realises how wrong he was to deny himself wanting this. Silver puts out a hand, takes James' fingers in his grasp, and raises them to his lips. He kisses them reverently, and then parts his lips to slip one of them onto his tongue.

It is astonishing that they can both carry the weight of such cares and still exist, still claim to be the men they once were. It makes James want to protect him still, the way he had once made an enemy of a lord to keep Thomas safe from his father’s disapproval. He would fight the sky itself, burn down an empire and everything in it, to give John Silver his freedom from the burden of their memories; the fervour of the thought is thoroughly unnerving.

“Come here,” Silver says, petulant and grasping. He tugs James closer, gets a hand around his hip and hauls him in.

James holds him off with hands on his shoulders, the better to look at him. With his shorter hair, Silver looks young again, disconcertingly so, and James finds himself wishing for the long curls to twine about his fingers, the way he never dared want to do aboard the Walrus. 

“It’ll grow back,” Silver says, sounding fond and amused, as James cards fingers through it. “Do you think you could get on with fucking me sometime today?”

James shudders, Silver’s brazen words sliding right down his spine like the warmest water. When he looks, he realises Silver is grinning at him, smile gone soft yet feral. This, this, is the Silver he remembers, facing him down across the carcass of a shark, and it has his head swimming with nostalgia for the sea, for the feel of a deck beneath his feet, for the time when he had been at his worst but also his most alive. 

“C’mon, Captain,” Silver is murmuring against his skin. He continues to mutter, profane exhortations and hisses about the passage of time and how he wishes they were back on a ship so that James could put him across his desk, and it is infuriating and familiar, so James holds him against the wall with an arm across his throat and tears the laces of Silver’s breeches with the other hand. 

He bites his way along Silver’s jaw, drinking the sweat from him and feeling his head swim; it is remembering all the anger and desire he has kept banked and ignored within himself these three years. 

“Let me touch you,” Silver pleads, low and serious, his fingers curling around James’ wrists. “Please, God, let me.”

James lets him free and allows his shirt to be scrabbled free of his breeches, and then Silver’s hands are on him, scratching nails across his stomach and plunging into his breeches to grasp him, tugging them open enough for Silver to get a hand around him properly.

“I want you in me,” Silver pants, voice wild in his ear. “Can you - just, _fuck_ \- “

James’ eyes are closed, to prevent the miraculous things happening under his fingertips from overwhelming him.

“Not like this,” he says, and Silver groans against him, struggling against the hands around his hips.

“Yes, like this," Silver says. "Exactly like this.”

It is the feeling of need, the buzzing in his head as he is given permission to take. It is watching Charlestown burn. It is frightening and it is glorious.

He shoves Silver harder against the wall and grasps his leg hard, hefting the weight of him upwards until Silver moans obscenely and wraps the leg around him. He gets a hand between them, frees Silver from his breeches and takes them in his hand together. It’s blissful and yet not enough, so he forces a hand in front of Silver’s face, holding him against the wall with his own weight and a knee wedged beneath his arse. 

“Spit.”

Silver does, then his head hits the wall as James takes them both in hand once more. It is hard and does not last, Silver spending first, hissing furious imprecations in his ear and rutting against him implacably, as if chasing some harder-sought release. James follows moments later, his teeth in Silver’s shoulder and his fingers claws at Silver's hips. 

“I think you’ve drawn blood,” Silver says, lazily. He lolls against the wall while James pants against his neck, struggling to recover his senses. "And you promised me a bed. Come on."

He steers James bodily towards the bedchamber and James is happy to be so propelled, though he raises a token protest. "You can't invite me into my own bed, you shit."

Silver ignores him and they each shed their clothes, with little need now for awkwardness, and slide beneath the blankets quickly to escape the chill. Silver's warmth and the sweat smell of him is as welcome as the weight of him along James' side.

“Have you always known this is what we would become?" Silver asks. 

James dips his head and takes his time in pressing lips against Silver's warm shoulder. “Not always.” Silver waits, then nudges him when nothing more is forthcoming. “Alright, you shit. Suspected? Only these past days.”

“Hoped?”

“Fools hope.”

“Then I’m a fool three times over. Ask me why,” he adds, nudging him again.

James rolls his eyes. “Pray tell, why?”

“In those months after I lost my leg, I hoped you might come to trust me; I was low in spirits and wanted to believe my powers of persuasion might prevail, where my ability to conspire against you had failed.”

James watches him now with interest; since Silver had appeared on the track from Ajaccio, he had truly not sounded himself; always too careful, too wary of James' approval. Now, he seemed keen to appear in earnest.

“The second?”

“Hope of friendship. After our imprisonment, I wanted your respect and your affection. And third, when I had lost all hope of both, I wanted only to see you safe. And I hoped - I trusted - that after I returned you to Thomas, you would come to understand why.”

Silence hangs heavily for a long moment. James wishes Silver had not raised the spectre of Thomas between them. With a sigh, Silver turns away to lie on his back, his eyes examining the ceiling.

“I'm sorry," he murmurs. Then, after a long pause, "you were right, about Madi and I. Regret, once it began to set in, set hard.”

“Regret?”

“Over you, the war, the gold. Mainly you.”

“She knows you’re here?”

“No doubt she thinks I’m dead.”

James presses his face to Silver’s cheek, inhaling the smell of him. It is too much to speak of this now; he wants to touch and taste the rest of the body that sprawls next to him, to make up for the time that was lost to them. He knows that Silver is making this confession for a reason, that he expects James to think him a coward, a failure, and is heading him off in his usual manner, half-truths deployed as his primary mode of defence. For this singular moment, and the promise of more like it, he cannot make it his business to care.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find a SilverFlint fanmix for this fic here: ['Harbour'](https://open.spotify.com/user/neverfaraway/playlist/5pI3q4BiznG7wS5BxQjsWC?si=IxwHi8cQTQC4kmbmrLNyfA)


	2. Cargoes of Regret

In the bowels of the Lion, in the middle of an ocean he did not wish to cross, James McGraw's primary observation had been that he might as well already be dead. And if, on arriving in Georgia, he was temporarily proved wrong, the feeling afterwards persisted. In his sleep, or in distracted moments while Thomas paused in his labour to cough desperately into the sleeve of his shirt, he observed it, creeping fingers of dread at the base of his spine.

One morning, Thomas coughed into his ragged handkerchief and showed it, bloody, to James; his eyes were wide and horrified and yet, not terribly surprised.

* * *

Silver has made a habit, now that December has slipped towards the earliest days of spring and the crimson cyclamen are raising their heads above the grass to wave prettily on chill winds, of marking the boundaries of the farm. He undertakes his traverses in silence, has not mentioned it to James at all, but James has observed him, taking up his crutch and making slow, careful inspection of the ditches and tumble-down stone walls that mark the nominal edge of James' domain.

Biasgiu's son is arrested for sedition on the third Friday of February. James has journeyed to Bastileca to purchase from the ironmonger, in need of shoes for the mule and another set of hinges. He hears the commotion before he enters the square, a cacophony of orders, the agitated babble of a crowd. Ducking into an alleyway, he makes swift survey of the scene in the market square.

One or two stalls have been upended. A woman weeps on the steps of the chapel. Ivory-coated Genoese soldiers have three young men in irons; two of them James recognises. There is Alesiu, the farrier's boy, and Niculaiu, the son of Biasgiu the butcher. Their eyes are blacked, there is blood upon their faces, and their heads loll in dejection as they are dragged towards the soldiers' cart. The Genoese are anxious to remove their prisoners and have muskets raised and trained on the townspeople. Biasgiu, James sees, is being restrained by his brother and the tavern keeper. Madame Petru spits curses at the soldiers as they take away the young men, a raging fury all in black, raising her gnarled fingers to make the devil's sign upon them as they pass.

James slips away, though his heart hammers in his throat. When Silver returns from his own visit days later, saying "Those Genoese bastards have taken the butcher's boy," James grunts and returns to his labour.

When the bells ring out over the valley for Candlemas, Silver announces his intention to make a visit to Ajaccio. It is the end of a week of seemingly endless rain, the stream in the gully at the valley’s base turned once more into a broiling deluge.

James has spent the hours since sunrise packing earth around the retaining wall of the water cistern. He is soaked to the skin when he returns to the house and is stripping his wet clothes when Silver makes his announcement.

"Why, in god's name, would you want to make that journey in this weather?" James asks, tugging off his breeches. Silver is still and quiet.

"Why not? I've been of little enough use here, these past weeks. Do you not - " He pauses.

"Go on."

"I only mean to say, do you never wish to break the pattern of these days in isolation?"

James looks at him, the dark shape of him silhouetted in the doorway. "Do you tire of it?"

"Of course not," Silver says, too easily. He must recognise something in James' expression, because he enters the room with his hands spread wide, reaching for him. "No, I misspoke; the pattern of our days suits me well."

He takes James' hand in his own and guides it to his waist. James breathes in the warm smell of him, the scent of the hearth fire in his hair.

"You're chilled," Silver murmurs, drawing him closer.

"Indeed," James says, enjoying the spread of Silver's fingers over his cold flesh. "Have you a remedy in mind?"

Silver smiles and nudges him backwards towards the bed, pushing him onto the counterpane with a now-familiar care that makes James' heart falter in his chest.

* * *

On the first Sunday in Lent, James rises to the pealing of the chapel bells to find himself alone. It is no particular surprise; they do not always share the bed, and Silver has his habit of stalking the boundaries, still. James has watched him, when able to do so unobserved, and wondered what it is that so occupies him in the long moments of his silent vigil.

He washes in the bucket of well-water he had left by the hearth the night before and dresses quickly. There are all manner of matters requiring his attention, not least the ground left bare for the first sowing of greens; it must be hoed and dug, heaped into ridges for turnips and furrows for beans. Before that, he must look in on the mule on his way to the vegetable beds. Usually it is Silver's work to feed her, but owing to the lack of a new shoe she has developed a tenderness in one hoof which worries him; another mule is an expense he is loathe to consider.

When he discovers that the mule is not in her stable, he immediately recalls Silver's insistence on the matter of Ajaccio. He curses him for his stubborn nature. What matter to him how and where Silver chooses to spend his days; it is only that he has taken the mule when she is in no state to make the journey.

He takes up the shovel and sets to work upon the turnip patch.

* * *

The sun is beginning to warm the earth; weeds beginning to show their heads can be easily uprooted and James has always enjoyed the mindless rhythm of tilling the land by hand. By the time the sun has set, he has the ground cleared and hoed into ridges and furrows and the turnips sowed.

It is late when Silver returns; when he enters the bedroom, James is reading by the light of a candle.

"I've been to Ajaccio," Silver says, beginning to unbutton his breeches. James does not raise his eyes from the page.

"That much I had managed to intuit."

"You're displeased," Silver says, frowning, hands stilling. "I had little idea that I required your permission to go about my business."

"Don't play the martyr," James snaps. "I care little how you choose to spend your time."

"I'm terribly sorry, I managed to mistakenly intuit your displeasure from the fact you've a face like a catfish in a trap."

James throws down his book. "What does that even mean? If I'm displeased, it's because some word that you had not simply taken flight and stolen the mule would have been courteous."

"Courteous?" Silver laughs without smiling. "Fuck you. I think the time for niceties between us has somewhat passed, don't you? Look, I had no intention of starting an argument. Ajaccio was - " He pauses and runs a hand over his face. "I saw plenty, and overheard enough, that confirmed my fears about what's happening here. Men are openly discussing revolution; I know you're conscious of it, and that it must concern you."

James does not mean to ignore Silver's implicit enquiry; he is simply beset by his own small misery of indecision. He has dreaded this moment, when he must admit that he has brought them both, through his own actions and choices, to this familiar, appalling situation; an island, febrile with dissent, on the verge of war. Will Silver think it worse, to be bystanders drawn into the conflict, than to be its chief prosecutors?

This is the moment at which he could assure Silver that the news comes as little surprise, that he has been planning for just such an eventuality.

Silver stands with his hands clenched upon his hips, his feet planted firmly on the rug which covers James' last remaining secret. It would be a moment's work, only a few words, to open it to him.

He does not. Silver throws up his hands, turns on his heel, and the moment is lost.

* * *

The following morning James wakes with a leaden feeling in his gut; it is unfamiliar and unnerving to regret an argument with such aimless ambivalence. Miranda had possessed the ability to shame him with a look and he had never prevaricated before prostrating himself before her for forgiveness. With Thomas he had never argued; they had simply never had the time to spare.

He rises secure in the knowledge that there shall be no supplication on his part in this instance. As much as he might regret the atmosphere between them, he will not abase himself for Silver's sake.

When he enters the kitchen, Silver is setting knives and bowls upon the table. He raises his head, takes in James' expression, and busies himself with pouring steaming water into cups.  
"I had the mule shod," Silver says, quietly, setting the tea beside the bowls. "You've no love of going to the village, after - so I thought it best to get it done."

It should not surprise him that Silver has intuited his reluctance to return to Bastileca, and yet he feels exposed by it. "Good," he says, finding he cannot bring himself to say more.

“There’s something I’d have you accept from me," Silver says, after a sigh. "I found it in - well, never mind. Here - " He places a small, leather-bound book upon the table.

The lead in James' gut roils and threatens to make him sick. He suffers a swooning sense of having lived this moment previously, of books traded as promise, declaration and apology. He reaches out slowly and takes it up with reluctance.

"It's Seneca," Silver says shortly. " _Letters to Helvia_ , in the French."

"I see that," James murmurs, opening the cover with caution. Thankfully there is no inscription. He closes the book and fixes Silver with a cautious glare. "Why?"

Silver's mouth twists. "I - saw it and thought you did not have it."

"I don't, you're right." James weighs the book in his hand for a moment; it is only short, a portion of the _Consolationes_ , which he did have, once, aboard the Walrus. "My thanks, then."

He turns, meaning to place the book upon the shelf in the bedchamber, beside his mildewed Shakespeare and the paltry collection of philosophy.

"Wait," Silver says, holding out a hand. "I am - this was not how I intended it to go. It is not a random choice, though it was coincidence I stumbled on it. May I?"

James hands over the book and watches Silver turn with some assurance to a page already marked with the book's tattered silk ribbon. Had Silver not spoken of it, had he intended James eventually to come across some passage, marked and selected for some purpose? He is intrigued, despite himself, not least because Silver does not read French, as far as he is aware.

"I had the run of Mr Scott's library, while on the Maroon island," Silver says, eyes on his. "I am not quite the ignorant urchin you took me for when we first met; I have some notion of the import of the text. There is a passage which spoke to me - _'From whatever point on the earth's surface one looks up to heaven the same distance lies between the realms of gods and men'_."

James recalls it vaguely, remembers only enough of the Latin to be sure of the first words: " _'Ubicumque ex aequo ad caelum erigitur acies..._ ' What does it signify?"

"Perhaps nothing," Silver says, glancing away. "But I took it as a comfort. That despite our respective exiles, there might still be some thread of brotherhood, some commonality between us."

Already made anxious by their argument, these epigrams in Latin and Silver's thoughts of him during their separation are entirely too much for James. There are no words of loving consolation he can give to soothe the wound left by the years he has spent hating Silver in some measure. He takes the book from Silver's outstretched hand and places it upon the table.

He kisses the corner of Silver's downturned mouth, feels Silver sigh against him, as though relieved of a great burden.

He wishes to tell Silver that he is loathe to be wooed with fancies, and that to attempt to re-imagine the history of their separation is a hopeless vanity. The eloquence between them, however, is best found with James' hands upon Silver's body, Silver's tongue upon his skin. He allows himself to be borne down onto the tabletop, and the tea goes unremarked when it is spilled.

* * *

It is well past Easter by the time James is able to bring himself to take the Seneca from the bookshelf in the bedchamber and open it beyond its flyleaf.

There has been no more talk of the trouble brewing in the interior. Silver's missions to Bastileca are his own private affairs; he seems, from the little he tells to James, to spend his time in the tavern listening to the talk of the village men. It follows the same pattern as James' erstwhile visits, but with a much different purpose and James does not care to hear of it. Between Silver's trips to the villages and the time spent patrolling the boundary - making catalogue, James now realises, of points that might be easily defended - he is often absent long into the night, returning to sleep upon the sopha by the embers of the hearth fire, or increasingly to slip into James' bed and warm his chilled flesh with James' hands.

By late May the valley has become fecund and fragrant, its air heavy with almond blossom, mint and fennel. On the Feast of the Ascension, Silver has once again absented himself - James assumes to enjoy the festivities in one of the villages, where there will be boar roasted in the square and dancing until midnight. James is content to spend the evening watching the sun tumble down the reddening sky towards the crown of the mountains. He suspects, in any case, that this year's festivities will be curtailed, and it angers him to think of Madame Petru subdued and quiescent, shuffling home from church under the gaze of the soldiers. He cannot afford such anger; it is, after all, not his fight.

He is sitting, while the sun disappears from view and stains the evening purple, upon the ragged sopha. He has dragged it from the kitchen to resume its position outside, now that the weather is consistently fair. He has thought it will make a pretty gesture, for Silver to return and know that he need not sleep by the hearth any longer, that James would have him in his bed with greater permanence.

His peaceful observance is broken by a disturbance upon the road; he hears Silver's arrival before he sees him, a great clattering as he brings the mule and cart at pace into the yard. Silver's hair is loose from its queue and there is a grim set to his mouth; James is out of his seat almost before he realises it.

"You are here," Silver says, as though he had expected otherwise. "Thank Christ."

His eyes are wide, his arms as well; his mouth is red and panting, putting James in mind of an animal, wild and afraid. Silver's voice, made rough by his haste and shortness of breath, is a frightening thing.

"What has happened?" James demands, grabbing at the mule's reins before she bolts.

Silver flings himself from the cart and makes for the house. "I've made a mistake," he says, flashing a wild glance at James over his shoulder. "I'll explain later, but I fear the consequences are now beyond my control."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Silver turns to face him and James is shaken by the desperation in his gaze. "We're in danger," Silver says, and James cannot understand why the turn of Silver's mouth is one of melancholy rather than of anger. "I have put us in danger; we have to leave."

* * *


	3. So Far and Back in Vain

Night had fallen with Silver's arrival and the house is illuminated only by the light of a waxing moon; it throws the almond tree into bone-white relief, its shadow lost amongst those of the barn and the farmhouse.

James has followed Silver into the kitchen, where Silver has begun rummaging amongst the knives. Through the window the moon displays the valley, the land that he has coaxed into a meagre form of fruitfulness. It matters not that James has been harbouring similar thoughts of late, that there will be no place for them in Corsica once rebellion erupts, that they will be forced by necessity to seek out a new place to hide from the world.

James puts a hand on Silver's arm to still him.

"There's no time to waste," Silver hisses, attempting to free himself from James' grasp.

He does not release Silver's arm; he dreads that if he were to let go, Silver would dissipate like mist, dissolved by the heat of his own agitation.

"Explain," he instructs, as calmly as he is able. "Explain very concisely what you mean by having made a mistake."

Silver's mouth hangs open for a moment; James sees the way his tongue runs along the back of his teeth, watches the unfolding of the hesitation.

"I owe money," Silver begins. "I owe money to the men who brought me here, to Corsica. They have been asking questions in Ajaccio; they found their way to Bastileca and almost certainly know the whereabouts of the farm. We must leave before they come to collect the debt, it is more than either of us can pay."

"Not just the debt of passage from Marseilles, then."

"There was also the matter of a small wager, and a number of ducats I liberated from them during the journey."

"Which is why you were stabbed."

James thinks back to that first, strange few weeks, of Silver wounded and hesitant, making his way around the kitchen with one arm curled loosely about his middle. The tale seems plausible, and perhaps elements of it - the stabbing, certainly - are not fabricated, but there is a particular look on Silver's face; he remembers it with brutal clarity.

"A plausible story," he concedes. "But it's not the truth, is it?"

For a moment it appears that Silver will try to salvage the lie, and James is back on that godforsaken clifftop watching Silver do anything to avoid telling him the truth. James sees the thought of it flash behind Silver's eyes, braces himself for the shock of it. Instead, Silver drops his head into his hand. He has aged badly, James realises, in the years they have been separated; it was only Silver's relentless good cheer and James' nostalgia that kept him from recognising it.

Silver's mouth twists. “I was stabbed for the ducats and the passage from Marseilles, that is true. But the men asking questions, I have seen only once before. They are here for a different purpose."

"What purpose?"

"They are asking questions about both of us, our whereabouts - no names, but he described my leg, your hair.”

“English?”

“Spanish. Not the law; they’ve a desperate look about them, bounty-hunters, I’d wager.”

James smiles grimly, “Well, good luck to them; Spain has no interest in dead men, and the ghosts of a couple of English pirates can hardly be of interest to Philip the Borbón.”

Silver fixes him with a flat look of calculation; it shocks James to realise it has been absent from his features for so many months that to see it now, masking his features so entirely as to make him a foreign, alien person, should come as such a blow.

"Let us not pretend," Silver says slowly, "that either of us is ignorant of the contents of the hollow space beneath the boards in your bedchamber."

James is momentarily stunned.

"What of it?" he demands. Flint suddenly lies close beneath the surface; the words are rough and angry.

"If I have been able to follow you here, it stands to reason others may have done likewise. It occurs to me that they may be interested in the information held by a couple of English ghosts, if that information were to pertain to the location of the cache of the Urca gems.”

For a long moment, there is only the distant call of an owl in the valley to break the silence; Silver is wearing an expression James recognises but had not thought to see again, here, written on his face with so little attempt at dissemblance.

“I think that must be it,” Silver continues, eyeing him carefully. “After all, neither of us is ignorant of its current location. Is that not so?”

The epiphany rises in him as a gorge in his throat. “You went to find it. You little shit, you went looking for the cache and - what? - you think I have it here?"

"Let us not enter into this dance again, I have no stomach for it anymore."

"You went to retrieve it and could find no trace of it, and you came here with the intention of taking it for yourself."

Silver says nothing, his mouth a thin, drawn line.

“You think that’s how I bought the land?” James demands. “You think I - what? - swam to that godforsaken island and dug up those gems?”

“Well,” Silver said, feigning a confidence belied by a tremor in his hands where they rest upon the chair back as though to steady him. “It's as good an explanation as any.”

James cannot feel the long-ago heat of his rage; he had thought, if Silver were to betray him a third time, his anger would be great enough to burn Corsica to the ground. Instead, he feels only its absence. He looks out at the verdant land they have cultivated between them these past months.

“I always knew you’d formed an unhealthy attachment to that gold,” he says hoarsely. "I never thought you’d make yourself a whore for it.” 

It is now that Silver's impassive mouth twitches, as though he wishes to deny it. James will not give him the opportunity to perjure himself further. “All the pretty lies you’ve spun me since you arrived here - "

“I have not lied, exactly - "

“Pretty lies, with the aim of working out whether any of that damned Urca gold remains. You goddamned - fucking-“

“No, it’s not - " Silver stops abruptly and then draws a deep, weary sigh. James cannot bear to watch the lines that have etched themselves deeply around his mouth. “Look, however it may have started out-“

James laughs. He begins to walk away, desirous of putting distance between them, but Silver grabs at him, takes his arm in a firm, desperate hold. "Wait - "

"What a miracle you found me, here in the arse end of this godforsaken rock. ' _Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity_ ,'" he quotes, watching the way Silver's expression turns incredulous as he places the quotation.

"Seneca? _Now_?" he spits, bewildered. "Just - if you would _listen_ \- "

"Forgive me, I'm reeling from the astonishing lack of surprise engendered by the revelation of your motives."

"My motives are the same as they have always been - to see you safe, and to stop those fucking gemstones getting one or both of us killed!"

"Get the fuck out of my house."

"Flint - Captain - "

"Don't you fucking dare - " James is across the table and has him by the throat. "Don't dare play that game with me."

Silver's eyes are wide and startled, his hand is on James' wrist, but his breath, not quite stopped by the pressure of James' fingers, comes quick and desperate. For a moment, James is convinced it would be best to let his fingers finish their task and end this once and for all, but Silver gasps for breath, and James becomes aware of the heat of his body, the smell of the day's sweat between them.

"Do it," Silver urges. He writhes under James' grasp, eyes huge and dark. "Go on."

James releases him and he sags against the wall, gasping and clutching his throat. There are four red digits outlined there.

"That gold ruined us," Silver murmurs, a hand on the bruises. "I went after the gems, yes. Do you think life has been easy, without a wife, without a crew? And, at the start, I'll admit that was part of my motivation for coming here. But I'd no more go after them now than I'd kiss the King of England's arse. _However_ , if it would stop those Spaniards from slitting your throat to get to them, then I would give them the gems three times over and anything else besides."

"You shit. Is there no depth to which you won't sink, to get your hands on that prize?"

"In this moment I don't give a fuck for the prize. The Spanish - "

"Fuck the Spanish. Get out of my house."

“Listen to me,” Silver demands, hands raised to plead even as James forces him towards the door. “Whatever the truth of my reasons for being here - whatever you think you know of me, the fact remains that there are two men, perhaps more, with no good intention towards either of us, on the other side of this valley. Leave recriminations for later, once we’ve got far enough away - "

“I’m not going anywhere,” James says, hand on the door.

“What? You can’t be serious."

“I have been running for far too long. I am not going anywhere. You may do as you please.”

“Flint - James - please, this is madness - "

James closes the door. He stands for a moment with his hand upon it while Silver hammers upon it with his fist.

Silver’s voice is anguished; it holds a desperation that James despises all the more for knowing it is false.

“I know there is no reason for you to believe me. Except that your life and mine might well depend on being far from here before the Spaniards arrive. For all I know they've a regiment of King Philip's men with them. For God’s sake, I would not have either of us die for you to prove a fucking point!”

James ignores him; it is well that he knows the truth of it, now. Anger fuels him; when that leaves there will be the only the empty bitterness of betrayal. He dreads that. Perhaps the Spanish will come the sooner.

“James, please.” Silver’s voice is soft and pleading. “I’ll not deny I’ve lied to you, but these past weeks there’s been nothing but truth between us. You'd know the difference well enough.”

"Be gone," James replies, "or I will shoot you myself."

* * *


	4. Hurt From All Sides

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanish dialogue translated in end notes.

It was almost entirely dark except for the glow of lanterns from the upper deck. The chain around his ankle was not tight, but heavy enough that it chafed his skin when he moved. Silver had muttered to him about a plantation in Georgia where Thomas lived still; he knew it was a lie told to make him acquiescent and he railed against it, against Silver's cruelty in promising him such a thing.

Silver was there, now, in the dark with him, for reasons he could not fathom. He had tried to speak with James twice already on the journey and now crouched before him with tears of frustration in his eyes.

"I will leave the lantern," he said, quietly. "I'd not have you sitting in the dark."

“Don’t pretend any of this is done out of care for me," James spat, unable to stomach this pretence any longer. "Nor for Madi. Whatever you think you achieve here, it is not kindness, nor altruism, nor love. You can let the mask of the selfless martyr slip; you have taken on some measure of translucency since you tried to put me off really seeing you, on that damned cliff top. I see through you, now.”

Silver crouched beside him, illuminated by the light seeping through the grating above. “What do you see?”

James let his eyes rove disdainfully over Silver's face. “A coward. Not for running away from the fight, but for pretending to yourself about your reasons. The problem is that you still see a way out of this that does not end with you alone, and you are blind to recognise it. Some part of you still thinks we could find happiness at the end of all this.”

"That is what I am giving you."

James looked away in disgust. He would no more believe Silver's lies about a miraculous plantation in Georgia than he would forgive him for what he had done in betraying their cause. He could not believe him; to do so would be to imagine Thomas' eyes alighting on this bloodstained, monstrous face, and that he could not bear to imagine.

“Madi will live to lead her people, you will have Thomas - "

James sneered. "Because you have deemed it necessary."

"Yes! It is necessary to me." Silver made a ragged sound, like something within him was tearing in two.

“Then do not pretend that you are promising either of us freedom,” James continued. “You have taken that from us both. Do not touch me,” he said, when Silver reached for him with shaking hands. "Go; find some other place to skulk until your conspiracy has been played out."

“I cannot let you go like this,” Silver said, his eyes on James' in the gloom of the hold. It became clear why he had come, that the release he sought was not merely that of forgiveness. "Please."

James shoved away his hands, his own wrists still bound.

“You have chosen this path, you have condemned me. Get out," James hissed. "Do not debase either of us in this manner again.”

Silver’s head hung low, his hair brushing his hands where they were clasped before him. He drew himself up, becoming a faceless outline of a man in the darkness of the cabin. 

He withdrew; James spied him only once more, through the window of the carriage he was bundled into on the quayside at Savannah.

* * *

With his duplicity revealed, Silver is gone until dawn.

In that time, James stalks the length of the bedchamber, back and forth, the boards creaking with each step, denying him the choice of forgetting the secret cargo hidden beneath them. His eyes alight on the dog-eared leather spine of Silver's _Letters to Helvia_ and before he quite realises it he is seizing hold of the stool that holds a water jug and bowl and dashing it against the bookcase. Next he upends the dresser with a roar, the wood splitting and the contents of the drawers spilling onto the floor. He continues in this manner until his shoulders ache and the contents of the room are splinters. The books lie strewn about, _The Tempest_ with its binding hanging by threads. He picks up the volumes one by one and slumps to the floor, cradling them in his hands.

He thinks of Thomas; what Thomas would think of him, to have sold his heart so cheaply to this thief, this most base of pirates, for a second time. He has made himself a fool, and the bitterness of that knowledge is what keeps him from sleep.

* * *

Early the next morning, James is drawing water at the well. He has seen Silver skirting the wall by the track from Ajaccio, but chooses to ignore him until he is within earshot. He dips his hands into the cool water in the bucket and scoops up enough to pour over his head. It is cold enough to make him flinch, but it clears his head after a restless night.

“I had the privilege to spend his final year and sixteen days with the best man I have ever known," he says, acknowledging Silver's presence. "What makes you think I have anything more to say to the likes of you?”

"The fact that you've more sense than to lie here waiting to be ambushed. Bring the gems, don't bring the gems, I don't care. We need to be gone."

Without a word, James turns on his heel and returns to the house; he cares little whether Silver follows, but hears the familiar thump of the crutch on the floorboards behind him.  
Silver curses when he sees the destruction James has wrought in the bed chamber. "You bloody madman," he mutters.

James ignores him and kicks aside the rug, dislodging a shower of splinters and dust. Silver seizes handfuls of the straw that has fallen out of the mattress and attempts to stuff it back in.

"You want to know what's beneath the floorboards of this goddamned fucking hovel?" James demands, clambering to his feet and dusting his hands on his breeches. He indicates the gap in the boards, the two he has prised up leaving ample space for Silver to peer inside. "There's what you whored yourself for - see for yourself."

Silver starts forward uncertainly, eyeing him with the manner of a man wondering whether James' next action will be to slit his throat and tip him into the hole.

He peers into the niche beneath the boards. There, wrapped in oil cloth, lies a handsome brace of muskets, a matched four of pistols, a set of cudgels and six duelling swords.

"What the fuck is this?" Silver demands. He gapes at the contents of the cache in open confusion, before turning on James in exasperation. "You couldn't just _tell me_? I've known you've been hiding something here for months, why were you so goddamned secretive about _this_?"

James will not give voice to the horror he has felt at the idea of Silver with a pistol in his hand; he absolutely refuses to confess his urge to preserve the peace they have carved from the earth, here, together.

"Let us not pretend either of us has been ignorant of the mood on the island. They were likely necessary, and I fail to recall when it became your right to monitor my private business."

Silver laughs. He laughs until he sounds as though the effort chokes him.

"What is so amusing?" James snaps.

Silver gasps for breath, his hands braced on his hips. "When those fucking Spaniards come, they're in for a surprise. You fucking bastard - all these months, and you never said a word!"

"Those gems, to the best of my knowledge, remain where I left them on that godforsaken island," James says, turning away. "It did not occur to me that you had come here seeking news of them. You said nothing - "

"What could I have said? That having failed to locate the cache, I now required your assistance? It took long enough to convince you not to strangle me where I stood."

Something uncertain and suspicious is lodged in James' breast; he is grasping at the edges of it, fitting together the pieces of his understanding.

"What I cannot fathom is _when_ you have had the opportunity to go after the gems. By your own account, you left the Maroon island a matter of months ago in order to seek me out - it cannot have taken you less than six months - " He pauses. The look on Silver's face is enough to confirm his sudden suspicion. “Let me make certain -“

“You need not,” Silver says quickly, as though attempting to avert disaster.

“No, I think I must. Madi did not forgive you, did she?”

Silver is staring in his direction but not at him, his eyes fixed on a mark below his shoulder.

“As I’ve said, you were right-“

“Yes, but you’ve led me to believe you’ve spent five years at her side, five years playing the dutiful husband, only to give it up, out of choice or sacrifice, to seek me out here.”

“Well, do you regret it?”

Flint ignores his clumsy attempt at deflection. “You created the story I would find most flattering - spinning yourself as the wistful lover, slowly realising his longing for me and attempting to right his mistakes. Is that how you thought to fool me, make me Penelope awaiting your return?”

“I don’t know what you-“

“Don’t play the fool! Where have you been for five years? Did she throw you off the island immediately, or did it take time for her to grow tired of you?”

“Fuck you, what does it matter?”

"Of course it fucking matters! Tell me, out of respect, if nothing else; out of pity, if that's all that will move you. When did you leave the Maroon island?"

Silver's expression is shuttered, his mouth set angrily. "One month after I returned there," he mutters. "Madi and I... You foresaw it all. How angry she was - not about my betrayal of her, but because I took that war away from her people. She spoke to me of the generations she served, that her people's will was her will. She said she could forgive me my actions for being made out of love for the both of you, but not that I had robbed her people of their voice. Kofi put me on a fishing boat the next day, told me to start rowing."

"Where the fuck have you been, if not with her?"

"Does it matter?" Silver says again, and this time James recognises his recalcitrance for what it is; an exhausted form of shame. "You're right, I went back to the island to find the cache. I failed; you have the better of me."

James snorts in disgust. “I’d forgotten the need to parse everything you say to pick the grains of truth from the horseshit. You failed to find the gems, and then what? You turned your attention to cheating your way around the Americas, searching for me?"

"No! I - it's immaterial what I've done or haven't done; you've guessed the crux of it."

"What motivated you to come and find me?" James asks, exhausted by the conversation. "Did you hope to seduce me in an effort to persuade me to return to Skeleton Island with you? Or did the thought of the gems only enter your head when you saw the farm and decided I must be sitting on a cellar full of jewels?"

There is a long pause. It is impossible to know which supposition is correct; there is every possibility that elements of both comprise the truth.

“Whatever my reason for coming," Silver says, his voice reminiscent of his pleading in the hold of the Lion, "my reason for staying is just as sorry as any you could imagine. I was alone and now I am not. Is that not enough?"

"I would like you to leave," James says, turning away from him.

Silver sighs. James can no longer bear the sight of him. He begins the work of setting the bedchamber to rights, placing the volumes on the sill of the tiny window with deliberate care.

"I will not go far," Silver murmurs. He hesitates, and James is certain that this, after all they have been through, will be what finally brings him to violence, if Silver lays a finger upon him now.

Silver leaves. Without him, the house is silent; what has always been balm and respite to James is suddenly oppressive.

He takes up the remaining floorboards and lays his store of weapons upon the kitchen table. In the hours before the sun sets, he cleans them, oiling each pistol so that its mechanism operates smooth and sure.

* * *

James has stationed himself at the kitchen window, musket and pistol beside him, cudgel at his side. He has lit no lanterns, but the moon is now full and it affords him the benefit of long shadows which shiver in the barest of breezes. The night is warm and still. He has heard Silver return to the verandah; he wonders whether he has taken the time to sleep, or if he too has kept vigil over the foot of the valley.

It is near midnight when a suggestion of movement in the shrubs near the mule house catches his eye. There, a shadow detaches itself from the rest, followed by another, and makes its way in a creeping fashion along the boundary wall in the direction of the house.

"Silver!" James hisses, hoping the fool will hear him.

Silver is at the kitchen door immediately. He slips inside and makes his way as quietly as he is able to James' side in order to peer through the window. “I saw it. How many?”

“Two, at least.” He nods in the direction of the guns. "Arm yourself. I would know why these sons of whores have come to disturb me."

Silver takes up pistol and sword and slips into the shadows next the hearth, while James readies himself beside the kitchen door, his own pistol solid in his grasp. His blood is thundering in his veins; this singular focus, this anticipation of the struggle, has been alien to him since he first set foot on the bank of the Savannah river. It thrills even as it appals him.

Soft footsteps on the boards outside. James hears a murmured instruction; whoever they are, it is clear that at least one of these brigands is not accustomed to subterfuge.

The door is opened cautiously - two figures are briefly silhouetted against the moonlight, the first taller, broader, the second quick to follow and of a more slender build; James would guess at an older and younger man, marks the first as the most immediate danger. The first figure slips inside. James waits; it is the feeling of watching the distance close between ships, when all strengthen their grips on the grappling hooks and await the order to board their opponent. He allows the second man to enter and waits until he has crept one step into the room. The moonlight falling through the window illuminates only a section of the floor; all else is black.

Swiftly, James strikes. He surges from his hiding place, the taller man having barely a moment to turn towards him before James knocks the pistol from his outstretched hand. He is aware of Silver launching himself at the smaller man, hears a strangled cry of surprise from him as he throws up his arm to defend himself.

The pistol gone, the man reaches to his waist, no doubt to draw a knife, but James is swifter, knocking away his hand and aiming a blow at the man's still-shadowed face. It connects sharply, but James is forced to dodge a blow in return and twists when the man sends the other fist into his side. He doubles, taking the man about the waist and bearing him to the floor. There he gets a knee into the man's groin. A glancing blow to his cheek is easily deflected and James is able to wrap a hand around the man's throat. He is struggling, now, as James bears him down, but James has the advantage of both weight and skill and the man stills when James brings his cudgel across his neck. One ill-advised movement will crush his windpipe; the man knows this; he spits a mouthful of blood and sags against the floorboards.

Behind him, Silver has the younger man against the table; the moonlight illuminates them so that James sees it is barely more than a boy beneath the blade of Silver's knife. His eyes are wide and his arms spread in supplication. James delivers a subduing blow to the man beneath him and lays him flat. He pushes the hair from his eyes and takes a deep breath; there is blood on his face, he realises.

"Get him tied," he snaps in Silver's direction. "Then help me do the same with this one."

When both are tied at ankle and wrist and stashed against the wall, James takes the taller man's jaw in one hand and slaps him roughly with the other. It is enough to rouse him, and he comes to cursing at James and struggling against the ties around his wrist. His fellow slumps miserably in his bonds and watches them with wide, frightened eyes.

"You speak English?" James barks at him, hand still tight on his jaw. The man spits at him, and James hits him again, this time with the butt of his pistol. The bones of the man's cheek give way beneath the blow. "I will not ask again."

The man reels against James' grasp and spits blood onto the floor. It is some moments before he able to speak. "I speak English well enough."

"Your name?"

"Fuck you."

James hits him a third time; there is fresh gore on his own face, now, and the man's nose is a bloodied mess.

"Who sent you?" Silver demands. His grip on his own captive tightens and the boy makes a noise of terror. "On whose authority do you walk into this house, armed, in the middle of the night?"

"We come on behalf of no authority," James' prisoner says with a sneer. "We have been watching you. You are worth a pretty sum, if we sell you. The old woman span a tale of the pair of you - service in the Navy, supposed fortunes won and lost in the colonies." The man spits again upon the floor at James' feet. "Spies, deserters - I do not care who you are. But you will be very valuable to me."

"You think to enter my house and label me a spy and a deserter," James says. His cheek aches and his lip is cut; there is a madness singing in his ears.

"Enough questions have been asked that it will be noted, should we not return."

"I think not," says Silver. "Two strangers, intent on making trouble for peaceful farmers. You will not be missed."

The man shrugs, a gesture of bravado belied by his companion's miserable whimper. "It is a risk I think you cannot afford. The King of Spain has long been Genoa's friend and ally. You are the strangers here, Englishman."

"From Ajaccio to Calvi there are men willing to burn the Genoese garrison to the ground, and off the coast there are Corsair ships waiting only for a favourable wind to bring them ashore. Even if King Philip were to give a shit about Corsica, he would neither know nor care about your fate."

"Tenemos una carta de marca!" the boy in Silver's grasp cries, struggling against his restraints. "Somos corsarios del rey!"

"Silencio!" the older man spits. "The boy is lying."

"What orders have you?" Silver demands. "Why have you come here?"

"The boy would say anything to save his skin," the man sneers. "We came to capture you and sell you as slaves. You think the King of Spain would give a shit about men such as you?"

"Enough," James says. He levels his pistol.

Silver starts across the room. "Flint, no - "

He fires, the bullet striking the man between the eyes. The wall behind him is painted with blood and bone and James' hand is steady on the gun. On the other side of the hearth Silver's captive retches and vomits onto the floor.

"What the fuck?" Silver demands. "How the fuck are we supposed to question him now?"

James stands, placing the pistol on the table beside him. "He would have told us nothing." He draws the dead man's knife from its sheath at his waist and kneels beside his terrified companion.

“Quién te envió?”

“Nadie!" The man scrabbles away from the blade; he is really no more than a boy, his lip dusted with the mockery of a moustache and his voice high in his distress. His eyes are on his dead fellow - blood is pooling on the floor around him. "Ustedes son fugitivos - queremos la recompensa!”

"You have already told us you have a letter of marque from King Philip," Silver says, eyes on the boy's face. "Either you lied then, or you are lying now."

"If we are to believe that you are privateers of King Philip, why did he send you here?" James takes the boy's shirt in his grasp. "Por qué te envió?"

"La Urca de Lima," the boy groans.

"What do you know of it?" Silver demands. "The Urca de Lima - qué sabes sobre el tesoro?"

The boy's eyes flicker between the two of them, his hands scrabbling at James' fingers. "No sé nada del tesoro! Solo de la Urca - ustedes son enemigos del rey!"

"You came to this island with a crew, on a Spanish ship. Tu tripulación, dónde está?"

"Siguen en el barco," The boy replies. "Nuestra misión fue confiada a mi jefe - ellos no saben que estamos aquí! Se lo ruego, señor - "

“Quién sabe que estás aquí?”

“Nadie! Señor, se lo ruego - nadie! Madre de dios - "

James draws the blade across the boy's throat, from ear to ear, blood wetting the side of his face, then his fingers, then flowing onto the boy's mended jacket.

He holds the boy's head in his hands as the life ebbs from him. He is aware, distantly, of Silver beside him, tugging the blade from his fingers and forcing his hands to loosen their hold. He cannot summon any sorrow for the boy's death - he and Silver live, their aggressors are vanquished, surely this is the definition of victory. Yet there is blood on his hands, Silver is beside him muttering furious pleas and promises, and the bloody boards beneath his feet heave as though they are deep in the swell of the sea.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"We have a letter of marque! We are privateers of the king!"_  
>  _"Silence!"_  
>  _..._  
>  _"Who sent you?"_  
>  _"No one! You are fugitives, we want the bounty."_  
>  _..._  
>  _"Why did he send you?"_  
>  _"The Urca de Lima."_  
>  _"What do you know of the treasure?"_  
>  _"I don't know anything about treasure! Only the Urca - you are enemies of the king."_  
>  _"Your crew, where are they?"_  
>  _"On the ship. Our orders were given to my captain - they do not know we are here! I beg you, sir - "_  
>  _"Who knows you are here?"_  
>  _"No one! Sir, I beg you - mother of God -"_  
> ...


	5. Harbour

There is blood on Flint's face. His eyes are those of the madman John first saw clearly on the quarterdeck of the Walrus, Singleton's broken face at his feet.

There is a moment, a second, in which Flint comes back to himself. It is scrawled across his face in a moment and then the facade of the lunatic, the shell of James Flint begins to crack, a shattered carapace no longer masking the anguished man beneath. Between them lie the bodies of spies; the one Flint has despatched with the knife is propped against the wall in a gruesome parody of relaxation, his blood a lake around him.

John shuffles closer, crawls over the legs of the dead man and pays no mind to the blood, until he tries to take Flint’s face between his hands and Flint shies from it. He scrubs his palms on his breeches and reaches again. He puts a hand on the nape on Flint’s neck, presses his cheek to Flint’s bloodied temple and murmurs nonsense to him, as a man might in the gentling of a frightened horse.

Flint’s hands are between them, shaking and curling in the front of his shirt.

"There," he murmurs, "what's done is done. You've bought us some time."

Flint's eyes are on him, following his movements as he wipes the blood from the side of Flint's face.

"He was only a boy," Flint says, mouth tight. "We can't trust they were alone."

"Their fellows would be upon us by now," John replies. Flint's eyes are still on him, but lower, on his mouth, on the open collar of his shirt.

He knows how this goes; has felt it himself, in the aftermath of a fight, the quickening in his blood; have they not shared this corner of the dark, since Dufresne's head crumpled beneath his boot?

Despite the despatch of the Spaniards, Flint is right to be cautious; with their names associated with the Urca in the ears of King Philip, and their whereabouts known, it is only a matter of time before more, and worse, men should follow. Who is to say the crew of the Spaniards' ship do not have orders to follow, should they not return by daybreak. If John is to shape their dissolution into some form of successful escape, if he is to save any part of what they have built together between them these past months, he needs Flint present, and reminded of their worth to one another. He puts a hand on Flint's thigh.

Flint is at half-mast in his breeches and John congratulates himself as Flint's eyes snap to consciousness, meeting his in a mute form of challenge. He tugs open the laces, dips his head, nuzzles the sweat-slick skin of Flint's neck.

When he pulls away, Flint is staring at him with wide, horrified, wanting eyes.

“Let me,” he says, and bends to take Flint into his mouth. 

It is an inauspicious angle; his knee will not take the weight of it for long and his jaw aches almost immediately with the effort of taking Flint deeply. Nothing in the world, short of Flint’s instruction, could get him to stop.

“John,” Flint says, and it sounds shattered; John is relieved and yet so very sorry for the necessity of breaking him down to this exhausted vulnerability. 

He gropes for Flint’s hand and finds it, tacky with drying blood, tugging it to the back of his own head, pressing to give Flint the idea, encourage him to take whatever it is that he should need. Flint’s fingers sink into his hair, gathering it at the base of his skull, pulling just enough that he groans, Flint slipping deeper, his jaw burning.

He finds he is almost insensate with it; Flint’s fingers on the back of his neck, his throat full and his eyes watering, his breath ragged when he is able to snatch it. He has only wanted, for so long, to keep this man safe, to protect him from the injuries deceitful men like himself will always have it in their power to inflict. Doing this, with blood slippery beneath them and no secrets left between them, is an unprecedented relief; he might as well cry with how good it feels.

“John,” Flint says again, fingers clenched in his hair, and John presses hands onto his hips to hold him down, lets Flint spend himself, pulsing against his tongue.

Flint slips from his mouth and John sags gracelessly to the floor, his head on Flint’s thigh. Flint’s hand is still in his hair, now winding between strands and smoothing them intermittently, an absent-minded form of comfort.

"This changes nothing," Flint says, his voice hoarse.

"Exactly," John says, heavy with satisfaction. He takes James' fingers in his own and raises the hand to his mouth; kisses the bloodied knuckles. "Here we are again, together."

Flint is clearly exhausted, too spent to argue.

"Come," John says, extending a hand to tug him to his feet. "We need to talk, you and I; there are still things that need to be said. I will talk, if you will listen."

* * *


	6. Another Beginning's End

"I will talk, if you will listen," Silver had said, and James had ignored him, pushing him aside to stagger outside in the direction of the well.

He had paused, there, hands on the stonework, and vomited into the grass at the base of the wall. Afterwards, he had hauled water, rinsed his mouth and face, and returned to the house with the bucket.

They worked side-by-side in silence until the sky in the east was pink and nuthatches had begun to chirrup in the almond tree. The kitchen had been set to rights, the boards scrubbed and pail after pail of bloody water flung into the maquis.

Silver had taken the ankles of the dead boy and hauled him to lie beside the door, wiping away the blood from his chin, tying a kerchief over the gaping maw of his throat with a perverse tenderness which James had been unable to watch, preferring to take the guns and the blades and clean them until each one could be laid in their oil cloth and bundled away. He did not return them to their hiding place below the boards; after all, they would be moved soon enough, as soon as he could martial his reason and set about planning their escape.

When he had finished, Silver had laid the bodies side by side and torn linen from the sheets on James' bed to bind them neatly at wrists and ankles. He is now in the process of gathering the shattered limbs of the shelves and cabinet James had destroyed. He meets James' gaze and nods his head in the direction of the verandah, taking his cargo with him.

When James follows he sees that Silver has constructed a fire - on it burn the bloody rags and the better part of the broken furniture. The flames crackle hungrily and smoke billows into a sky now pale and yellow just before dawn.

When the last of the wood has been added to the blaze, Silver wipes his hands upon his breeches and turns to fix James with a soft, expectant look.

"I'd have that talk now, if you're amenable?"

James watches the progress of the flames; fuel crumbling to ashes and the fire shifting, taking on an anima of its own, as the newly added wood begins to burn.

He turns on his heel. "Come inside."

* * *

In the bedroom - the bed now devoid of sheets - James begins to remove his clothes with steady deliberation; he feels Silver hesitate behind him, knows the confusion that will be etched plainly upon his face. The need to be before one another without disguise is too great for him to hesitate; he turns an eye on Silver and draws his shirt, now brown with blood, over his head.

Silver hurries to comply and has soon caught him, tugging his own shirt over his head and copying James in discarding it upon the floor.

"What would you have me do?" he asks softly.

James takes him by the shoulders, propels him to the bed, and pushes him down to sprawl across it. Silver gazes at him with an openness that James had begun to think he had imagined, these past days when he has been convinced of Silver's treachery; he sees that it remains, here, in this space where there is no longer any pretence between them, and he is reassured.

He kneels between Silver’s parted thighs and revels in the way he trembles.

“Flint - what-“

Silver is hardening rapidly and James braces a hand on either thigh and takes him in his mouth. He wants Silver broken down and thinking of nothing beyond this point of connection, wants his own attention narrowed to the weight on his tongue, so he takes Silver deep and steady and is gratified by the involuntary arch of Silver’s back, the wordless cry he makes when James hollows his cheeks and begins to take him apart. 

It does not take long; Silver had been hard with his mouth on James on the bloody floor of the kitchen and had gone unsatisfied; soon he is clutching at James’ shoulder and swearing earnestly at the ceiling. 

James takes the root of him in hand and works him to completion with the same steady focus. His own cock is hard against the mattress but there is a greater purpose here and so he ignores it. Silver cries out, throws back his head and sobs James’ name, a hand in his hair as James swallows him down.

For long moments afterwards James watches him, enjoying the helpless heaving of his chest, the fact that he cannot, for the moment, exist anywhere but outside his own thoughts.

He bats Silver’s hand away when it reaches for him and pulls himself up to lie beside him, careful not to touch with any part of himself.

"Talk," James says, as Silver watches him in dumbstruck bewilderment. They are naked to one another; the morning is becoming warm and sweat is gathering at his temple.

Silver's eyes dart to James' obvious arousal. "Talk?"

"Yes, or I will begin, and you will like what I have to say far less."

Silver swallows. "Alright, I acquiesce. Will you let me start with a question?"

James inclines his head and Silver takes his time, choosing his words with the appearance of utmost care.

"If not by the cache, how in the hell did you acquire this place?” Silver's gesture encompasses the bedroom, the farmhouse, the valley; this strange, peaceful existence.

“Miranda and I were not entirely without means when we took our leave of England; we had her jewels, a little money. We exchanged them, as soon as we were able, and Miranda had her house in the interior - the rest I deposited, against bad fortune, under an assumed name. I returned to claim it on my escape from Savannah. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

"I suppose." Silver holds his gaze steadily. "And now your turn. I'd have you ask whatever you'd like."

James watches him for a moment, takes in the lack of guile apparent in his expression. "Why are you still here, now that the danger is passed and it is clear I am, after all, nothing but a simple farmer?" he asks, uncaring that his voice is too rough to feign indifference.

“I came because of the gold, it’s true." Silver ducks his head, appearing to consider his answer. "But I stayed because I could not bear to put the sea between us again.”

"I thought I remembered what it was to read you like a book," James says. "Now, I fear that everything I read was a fiction of my own making, because I wanted it so."

"I will tell you anything you need to know to be sure of my sincerity."

James shakes his head. "I don't want a confession."

"Well, you will have one. There is one thing I have not told you, and I would like to - I think it the only way forward, that there be no more secrets between us."

"Go on."

Silver's voice is low and shamed in the way it had been in that cursed launch the day they sought a whale and found a shark. “It was far longer than you realise," he says, "that I knew of Thomas' whereabouts, before I sent you to him.”

James had thought that honesty was what he desired, but he cannot listen to Silver's dissection of another of his betrayals; not so swift on the heels of the last, and not concerning Thomas.

“Stay, please,” Silver entreats. His hand is still on James’ wrist. “When it was reported to me that Thomas lived, I couldn’t account for the way the news sat heavy with me. In the years since, I have asked myself - did I know, then, why I delayed in telling you, or did I think I put off the end of our association for reasons purely of... strategic necessity? I think if I knew, I did not acknowledge it, but I could not bear to hasten the approach of the day you would sail away from me and have no reason to return.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m sorry for it, that the delay kept you from him for days you did not have to spare.”

James observes the grim set of Silver's mouth behind his beard. In another life, Silver's confession might have prompted - what? - rage, and violent retribution. In the crumbling remains of the fortress against memory that he has built himself, in contemplation of the necessary violence, he cannot bring himself to it.

"You say you could not bear to have me gone, and yet you made it so," he says, when he is able.

“I had to be free of you,” Silver murmurs. “With every day I saw your attachment to me grow, but I had to set you free, from everything you’d sacrificed. Watching you break yourself on the rocks, time and again, you’ve no idea...”

James takes his face in his hands and kisses him. "In setting us free, you became our gaoler."

Silver says nothing, eyes on James' face.

"What I cannot understand," James says, "is why? Why go after those gems again, after all the ill fortune they brought us? The callow, grasping youth I met was only ever a pretence - don't tell me it was for greed, I won't believe it."

Silver sighs. James is beginning to detest provoking that weary utterance. "There's little to distinguish greed from desperation when you're a penniless exile bearing an infamous name too dangerous to leverage. I had lost everything: the crew, Madi, my purpose. I thought to myself that money might buy me a new life, away from all of it.

“I never actually made it to the island," he confesses, quietly. "Got as far as Tortuga, found a tavern and started to tell my story, hoping to persuade a crew to join me, when I realised two things. One: without you to guide me, I had a vanishingly small chance of finding that treasure, and two: without you to guide me, or Madi to love me, I had little use for the money, anyway. So I drank a quantity of rum and went and found me a boat to Georgia.

“I thought - " Silver's voice is low and full of shame. "I thought that perhaps, if I could locate the cache and return it to the camp... It would have been a fool's errand. If she'd let me buy my way back into her affections, she'd not have been the woman I loved."

"I ask again," James says, "does she know that you are here?"

Silver shakes his head. "I was not lying; most likely she thinks I am dead. She'd not be wide of the mark; these past five years, it has been a close-run thing," he adds, quietly. "I wanted so much to believe that she would forgive the loss of the war; that I, in my incompleteness, would be enough for her..."

His head falls to his chest and James realises to his horror that Silver's face is wet with the evidence of his misery.

"I loved her," Silver gasps. "My God, I loved her."

He allows Silver this release, letting him hide his tears behind his hands while he dresses and goes outside to attend to the digging of graves.

* * *

James has made slow progress when Silver joins him, but there is the beginning of a pit wide enough to accommodate the two bodies recumbent on the verandah. Silver is still less than efficient with a shovel, but he works in silence until they are able to excavate a grave deep enough that the bodies will not be discovered by the boars as soon as there is rainfall. Between them they drag the bodies by their ankles and roll them into the pit; the boy lies atop his companion, and James is grateful Silver cleaned him and covered the wound in his throat, though the bandage is red and masks nothing of what was done to him. They throw dirt over them and Silver cuts scrubby limbs of maquis to disguise such an inadequate grave.

While James washes himself at the well - he is all-over sweat and grime and still the blood of the boy clings to him - Silver disappears into the kitchen, returning to hand him a steaming mug of tea. They sit upon the wooden boards of the verandah to drink it, and James' gaze is drawn down the valley by the shafts of sunlight breaking over the cap of the mountains to illuminate the road from Ajaccio.

"In all this," he says, "there’s one story I’ve still never heard from you.”

Silver frowns. “Can you still believe me when I say it is not worth the telling?”

“I cannot decide; if I am to make my peace with what has passed between us, must I know you, once and for all?”

“No one ever gave a shit about me, or my story, until I inveigled my way onto the Walrus. So you could say my story begins and ends with you.”

"Is that what you were trying to tell me on that clifftop? You were precipitous, our story had not ended then. Still hasn't.”

“James,” Silver says, and his voice is soft and dark and entirely serious in a way James has not known. “I’m here with you now, after all the shit we’ve survived, so if I claim the right to define the beginning and end of my own story, I'd thank you to respect it. I begin again, here, with you, and I sincerely hope to end with you, too, and I don’t particularly give a shit where that end turns out to be. I’ll go back to London with you, if you like, and we’ll set ourselves up as madams in a molly house. I’ll make you the King of Timbuktu if it’ll bring you peace. Someday," he adds, quietly. "I may give you that part of myself, but at a time of my choosing. You may not take this from me, no matter how many apologies you are owed."

James kisses him again, because he has no words of his own, though in that moment he does not regret his destination either; it is time to make his peace with thoughts of how the road leading towards it might have been different. He is so very, very tired, and there is another journey to be planned. He had once expected to die in this place.

"'It is not that life is short,'" he quotes, thinking suddenly of the book upon the shelf in the bedchamber, "'it is that we waste much of it.'"

Silver glances at him. "Seneca, again? Well, since we're playing this game, here's one I prefer: 'Life is short; live immediately."

Silver raises his mug and James knocks his own against it, a toast to an uncertain future.

* * *

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Find a SilverFlint fanmix for this fic here: ['Harbour'](https://open.spotify.com/user/neverfaraway/playlist/5pI3q4BiznG7wS5BxQjsWC?si=IxwHi8cQTQC4kmbmrLNyfA)


End file.
